Key Experience

Key experiences are intense emotional states that arise as a result of various life circumstances and cause a specific reaction in a person. A key experience may be a difficult life situation that creates stress and causes long-term emotional tension. As a result of such stress, a person may experience constant worry, anxiety, feelings of uncertainty and fear.

A key experience can also be impressions or events that had a strong impact on a person and remain in his memory. These can be pleasant or unpleasant memories, addictions associated with a difficult childhood, etc. In people with different individual typological characteristics, the symptoms of a key experience will be expressed differently

**Key experience** is one of the most important concepts in psychotherapy, which is used to describe intense experiences of a person. This experience can be caused by various reasons, such as stress, trauma, illness or simply personality traits. **A pivotal experience is an event that leaves a deep imprint on a person's psyche.** It can cause a wide range of emotional reactions, including fear, anger, sadness, anxiety and other feelings. A key experience is often the basis for the development of mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, phobias, etc.

In psychotherapy, the key experience is one of the main objects of attention, since it determines the nature of the response to the world around us and the formation of a lifestyle. What happens to a person who has had a key experience depends on what his response to it is. This is what determines the entire future life of a person. A range of physical health problems occur as a result of exposure to key experiences. For example, a person under stress may experience high blood pressure, disruption of the gastrointestinal tract, and sleep disturbances.

For developing the process of psychoanalysis, specific concepts are “primary and secondary processes.” The concept of primary processes indicates the immediacy of the influence of reality on the psyche, while secondary processes are the consequences that have already been processed by events. **Key experienced episodes are events on which the formation of the core of the personality of each individual person depends. Formally, key events are considered to be events that occur only once, then they affect a person’s entire life.**

Most often, patients with borderline mental disorders recall a key episode with negative content. They were prone to anxiety, aggression, showed strong emotions, and had a tendency to somatic disorders. Their subjective world of experiences was vivid, intense and dramatic, thus influencing the course of their own lives. At the same time, positive key experiences left only positive impressions, did not involve vivid memories and did not lead to difficulties in the future. Most key episodes were accompanied by negative emotional experiences, as well as aggression